Sandor: travelling with a sketchbook in hand

Liligo

It’s time for another liligo.com team interview and this time we caught up with Sandor, the in-house graphic designer at liligo.com’s Budapest office. He told us about travelling in Hungary, Transylvania and further east to India and South Korea.

What does travel mean to you?

Nothing makes me feel more free than the chance to travel. It’s the perfect opportunity to learn about new cultures, lifestyles and it also gives me the chance to find inspiration for my design and graphic work.

What’s the first thing into your suitcase?

My camera, sketchbook and my drawing kit. Drawing and designing isn’t just a job for me, it’s a passion and I always use the opportunity to sketch new places and experiences while on the road. In a way my sketches are my travel notes.

How do you choose your destination? How do you organise your trip?

When I’m thinking about where to go next, there’s always three criterion: natural beauty and landscapes, cultural and artistic heritage and new trends in contemporary art.

Where is the furthest you’ve ever travelled?

South Korea. Four years ago I was invited to Seoul to represent Hungary at an international art symposium.

My contribution was a piece of art made up of a GPS drawing (a drawing make on a satellite map using the GPS system ndr). The image is of siamese twins, with their two heads facing each other, symbolising the two Koreas: one nation divided into two opposing countries.

I’ll be honest though, I much preferred the Korean countryside and the areas surrounding Seoul over the city; it was much too westernised in my opinion.

What has been your most memorable trip so far?

India, without question. I took a flight to Mumbai and from there I travelled along the eastern Indian coast. Afterwards I took a trip inland again to visit Bangalore.

I realised pretty quickly that India is a totally different universe; it’s full of contrasts, extremes in both senses: smell, colour, flavours. It’s also a really social culture, everything seems to be happening in the streets!

India is very welcoming to tourists and my first impression was that India was a very self-sufficient country and very independent (not too western). For a visitor though, this can feel a little strange at first.

What type of traveller are you: super organised or off-the-cuff spontaneous?

I definitely fall into the second category. It reminds me of a story actually. One of the first trips I took was in my twenties. I was hitchhiking from Transylvania to Paris. Unfortunately my budget was almost entirely used up when I reached Belgium. So I decided to stop in Genk and invest the last of my savings in some papers and paints. I started doing portraits in the streets in order to make some more money to travel home again. The kicker? I never reached Paris but it was still the adventure of a lifetime…

You’re Hungarian but from the Transylvanian part of Romania. What can you tell us about your home, is it worth visiting?

Absolutely, yes! Transylvania is surrounded by beautiful mountains and the landscape is dotted with lakes and lush nature.

The region is also rich in history. It’s the crossroads of three cultures: Hungarian, German and Romanian. From an artistic point of view, there are also some very interesting cities in the region like Cluj (Hungarian Kolosvár, the capital), Timişoara (Temesvár), Oradea (Nagyvárad), Sibiu, a city of Roman origin Alba Iulia (Gyulafehérvár in Hungarian) and Turda, called the “city of salt.” Don’t forget to visit the medieval castles, such as Bran, the castle of Count Dracula!

Where are you off to next?

New York and China.

Want to read more about the liligo.com team? Our team loves to travel… obviously, and have plenty of travel tips, destination advice and stories to share in our series of liligo interviews right here on the blog.

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